After the battle
by Firecadet
Summary: Romantic fic set after the Battle of Monica, developing the relationship between Helen Zilwicki and Paulo d'Arezzo. Some minor scenes of intimacy, on par with offical books. Chapter one improved and re-worded to bring it in line with lore.
1. Chapter 1

HVPHZPD

It was very fortunate, Helen Zilwicki decided, that Hexapuma had such a small ships company. With pre-ghost rider manning levels, every compartment was a thoroughfare, even the out of the way ones. Being caught wrapped around one of the other midshipmen on board would have been a disciplinary issue, even though they were roughly equal in seniority, Helen was senior to Paulo, and being caught canoodling in a corner was in all likelihood a breach of article 119, which was very definitively a Bad Thing on your snotty cruise.

After Monica, she couldn't remember which of them had made the first move on the other. All she could remember was simply stepping into a small observation room, locked together at the lips, thinking about nothing but the moment, even as, uninvited, she felt Paulo slipping a gentle hand inside her tunic, parting the magnetic strip with a tiny strip of plastic, and she just groaned as his hand found one of her breasts, and simply continued the process of making her feel very pleasured, until he heard a familiar set of footsteps, one from large feet, and a different set that were far more staccato.

His hand whipped out of her tunic, and she pushed him back into a sitting position in the lee of the door, where Lieutenant Hearns _might _not detect him. Her hair, admittedly, was in a state of absolute disorder, so she quickly opened a service run and began rooting around, hoping Lieutenant Hearns would pass by.

She didn't.

Instead, the Grayson officer walked straight in. "Miss Zilwikci." She said, in her soft, musical Grayson accent. "I thought you were headed for impeller one."

"I was, sir. As I was passing the room, I heard an alarm sound in here. I decided to check it out, in the hope I could fix it."

"I _assume _you called it in to engineering?" The poker-faced Grayson replied, betraying nothing.

"I was hoping to sort it myself, sir."

"I see." Lieutenant Hearns replied. "Do you know where Midshipman de'Arrezo is?"

Her eyes flickered to the door, where the Lieutenant's armsman was leaning, clearly very comfortable. "No, sir." She said, before flushing, hating herself for loosing control of her emotions and body language to such an extent.

"Mateo, would you close the door, please." The Grayson said, her face remaining inscrutable as the huge San Martino almost casually opened the door.

"No-one, milady."

"I see. Mateo, be a dear and open the cable run behind there." She instructed, keeping her eyes firmly on Helen's face. Under her father's tutelage, however, Helen had developed a poker face to match the Grayson's and revealed nothing. The armsman compiled, glancing both ways down the surface run to search for anyone, listening intently for anyone making haste down the run who might have been nearer.

"Nothing, milady." He said, sliding a hand very unobtrusively up above the door, looking for ankles. To Helen's surprise, he found nothing. With a annoyed glance at her, the armsman stepped through the service hatch, before stepping back and through again, facing the opposite direction.

"You wanted me, sir?" Paulo said, stepping into the compartment.

"Yes. The Captain wanted you to run up some programs for solly first line EW systems, based on the last generation of our systems before ghost rider, with a ten percentage point advantage over everything we had. Not that you were _busy, _I assume."

"No, sir." He replied, keeping his face perfectly straight. "I was heading for the wardroom when chief Malcolm told me you were looking for me."

"Don't think I won't ask him. I think you were in this service run a few minutes ago. And the Tester knows how the captain has a belief in the regulations about relationships." She replied, half-stating, half-fishing for evidence to back up her suspicions.

"Me, sir?" Paulo replied, his face its usual blank canvas. "I know the regs. I wouldn't dream of violating them." Then he stuck out his tongue, suddenly. "You imagine I have any interest in relationships." He said, after giving the lieutenant a few seconds to clearly see his tongue. "You know what happens to C-types after a certain age, lieutenant."

"I know." She snarled, her jocular humour vaporizing like water in front of a graser. "I know Madasan practices all-too-well. And I know what Mesa does as well. If I could, I'd waive the Eridani Edict for both planets. And I would happily pull the trigger myself." Her armsman made a noise of agreement, before she marched out of the compartment.

Once she had vanished down the corridor, Paulo kissed Helen again, before saying "I was too young for those bastards to begin my "development", and just holding her to him, as he shook with suppressed tears. "Every day, for a year, once I knew what was going to happen, I was scared..." his voice tailed off, and she kissed him again. "For a b model, you were required to know more than not to resist." He continued, his voice cracking. "They would have forced me to learn, as soon as I was physically capable of learning, what a female wanted. It was an excellent use, as they saw it, for failed batches of female C-types. Training us to be lovers. Four years, then you were shipped out, and only luck would save you from a "pleasure" resort."

"I..."

"Understand?" He snorted. "_No-one _can truly understand if they haven't been in that place themselves."

"I was going to say I love the man you are." She replied. "If I had the chance, I'd wipe out the slavers myself. Remember who my adoptive mother is."

"Helen..." he said. "What I said to Lieutenant Hearns is true. I have _no _sexual desires for just anyone, only for you. I love you as much as you love me, but I would still find some things too hard to cope with."

"Is there any way to change that?" She asked, rocking her hips slightly, in a suggestive manner.

"Not unless you know someone who can wipe memories." Paulo replied.

"You wouldn't be the man I want in my bed." Helen retorted. "The hardest part of what was done to you will be coming to terms with it."

Abruptly, she broke off the lecture she was about to give when he suddenly kissed her, pressing her back against the bulkhead. After about thirty seconds, Paulo broke the kiss, and gave her a somewhat mischievous grin. "Once we're dirtside, I'm sure we can work things out." He said, before locking on for another attack run.


	2. Chapter 2

A/N. I will admit to taking a few liberties with Paulo's background in the intital, now heavily edited first chapter. There is no firm data on when he was liberated, but the implied data suggests he was liberated as a infant or small child. I apologise for the now corrected inconsistency. I also apologise for the forms of address used in the previous chapter. Due to other influences, I had the characters using "sir" to address lieutenant Hearns. I further apologise for this error.

* * *

When Helen woke up, she was in her bed in her adoptive "mother's" townhouse on Manticore. Admittedly, however, she wouldn't have wanted Cathy Montague anywhere near the townhouse, owing to her sleeping partner.

Then again, Cathy probably would have approved of him. Definitely once she knew who, and what, he was.

Several months had passed since the _kitty _returned from Talbot, and with their assignments leaving them posted in different departments, she and Paulo had begun seeing each other in earnest.

It hadn't been an easy process. The amount of mental scar tissue that Paulo carried just from his short exerience of Manpower of Mesa, and that struck him daily when he looked in a mirror, cast her minor case, if there was such a thing as a minor case of PTSD, into a stark, anodyne perspective. Killing three times with your bare hands in ten seconds had left her almost certainly scarred for life, but she had no real idea what Paulo would have gone through, and that scared her.

She knew the details, in a way few non ex-slaves or manpower employees might, but it was academic knowledge, second-hand, and consciously de-saturated to make the process readable without causing permanent psychological damage to the reader, or resulting in large, 'accidental' explosions on Mesa.

Smiling, she rolled away from the gentle hand that had spent most of the night after they'd finished their adolescent explorations cupping her left breast, before kissing the back of it. She wouldn't be going far, though.

One of the things she'd learnt about Paulo was that he hated being scratched or bitten in any way while they were in bed together. He hadn't specified why, but she could imagine some reasons, even though she would have expected damage to his skin to please him.

As a result, she went to bed handcuffed, using a set of discreetly acquired leather bondage restraints to contain her arms and stop herself doing any damage. The restraints were fastened using a simple buckle, with an eye to allow the cuffs to be locked, although she didn't need it, and simply relied on the buckle itself to contain her. Getting out of the things unassisted was a pain in the backside, though, and something she prefered to avoid, so she reluctantly jabbed her boyfriend in the ribs with a knee.

Normally, they wouldn't have been out of bed or dressed before mid-day, especially while her father and Cathy were out-system, visiting Torch for the anniversary celebration of the system's liberation. There were too many kinks to enjoy without Paulo having to exit the building at half-three in the morning, swing over the perimeter wall, and land in his groundcar to avoid parental suspicion.

They had other business to attend to today, however.

"Paulo de'Arrezio," she said, not keeping her voice to a minimum. "Your appointment is in an hour."

"Mumble groan." He replied indistinctly, reaching for her.

"I love you too, and I would like nothing better than to spend the morning with you alone, but if you want Allison Harrington to carry out your little project, you'd better shift, especially since the Admiral is dirtside at the moment." She told him, allowing a teasing tone into her voice. "And I would appreciate having the use of my arms again."

After about a minute, her boyfriend finally surfaced, before tenderly unfastening the straps preventing her being able to tear up his back, and kissing her once her arms were free to snake around his shoulders.

"Breakfast?" He mumbled after a while, clearly having lost the RMN ability to wake up on demand.

"I assume the auto-chef is functional." She replied, deciding that a small fire was not a part of learning to cook, despite the pan-fire the previous day when Paulo had tried to do bacon.

"You enjoyed it." He replied, smiling. "I'm sure that wasn't suppressant foam, however. I don't remember keeping any in the fridge, or it burning merrily itself until it was in the sink and underwater."

"Yeah, yeah, sure. I'm certain Cathy won't comment on the scorchmarks in the kitchen when they get back."

"And your father?"

"He will."

"Ah. So I'd better not improve them." He joked, before dropping into his jeans, hauling on a t-shirt, and then watching with shameless pleasure as his girlfriend dressed, supple lean curves everywhere, smiling broadly. "You are so going to decide to halt me half way through one of these days. She joked, as he kissed her immediately after she was dressed.

He just smiled, before gently kissing her again.

Breakfast wasn't anything close to disastrous, despite the previous excitement, due to the auto-chef having been designed for Cathy Montague, and her notorious ability to forget the stove while writing a speech about why genetic slavery was bad. The Landing city Fire Department had brought it along after their fifteenth call in a month to a major kitchen fire at the house she'd occupied at the time, and it had travelled with her, even after Isaac came into the picture as a reliable, safe chef.

After the bacon, eggs, fried slices and sausages had been fully dealt with, the pair wandered out to the garage, before selecting the Zilwicki number four groundcar, a fifteen year old nondescript solly import in beige, without tinted glass, a obvious pulser turret, or any other distinguishing features. The number-plate was even more vague, eschewing the Z1lick1 that the main family vehicle boasted, simply using an auto-generated string to fully blend in.

Under the skin, however, it was very different. Armorplas viewports sat in a battle-steel frame, with every inch of the exterior surface made of the same composite as front-line battle armor. The engine wasn't the stock 90hp lawnmower the vehicle had shipped with, either. It was a 300hp engine designed for racing craft and light aerofoil aircraft, giving a top speed of two hundred and ninety kilometres per hour, with handling and drive system taken from a all-up single seat racer designed for system level competition. For defence, there were two military spec pulser pistols in the glove compartment, with ten spare two hundred round magazines ready to go, along with the fifty round mags inserted into the weapons. The holders doubled as charging points, eliminating the risk of the weapons running out of power before being needed. There was also a pulse rifle mounted inside the passenger footwell, concealed behind a section of dashboard.

Hopefully, Helen reflected, climbing into the drivers seat, they wouldn't need any of those extras today.

The traffic in Landing was as usual: bad, slow and frustrating. Even so, they arrived outside Harrington House with ten minutes to spare.

"Helen Zilwicki and Paulo de'Arrezio to see the steadholder-mother." She said to the somewhat grim looking armsman on the gates, knowing he had heavily armed back-up within yelling distance if they turned out to be assassins or arsonists, or even journalists.

After a quiet ear-bud chatter, he opened the drivers door. "I need to search you and your vehicle." He said, his soft accent making the words less threatening.

"Certainly." Helen replied, keeping her hands away from her body as she slipped out of the car, before being quickly patted down, then turning round to see another armsman opening the glove compartment and relieving it of the weapons inside.

"Interesting toys." He said to Paulo. "Yours or the lady's."

"Her father's. He's in a rather serious line of work these days." He replied, carefully not reaching towards the weapons. He could clearly see the Harrington flag flying over the mansion, indicating extra caution was required.

"Would you mind leaving your vehicle with us." The gate guard said. "Isaac here will take you up to the house."

"Certainly." Helen answered, before swinging into the newly arrived golf-cart for the ride up to Harrington House.


End file.
